attention. Nor will it be anything to the point to say, "But I know
myself as a physical creature to be involved in effort. The strain of
volition is felt in my head, in my arm, throughout my entire body."
Nobody denies it. After we have attended, and the machinery is set in
motion, we feel its results. The physical changes involved in action
are as apprehensible in our experience as are any other natural facts,
and are remembered and anticipated in each new act.



IX

Only one stage more remains, and that is an invariable one, the stage
of satisfaction. It is fortunately provided that pleasure shall attend
every act. Pleasure probably is nothing else but the sense that some
one of our functions has been appropriately exercised. Every time,
then, that an intention has been taken, up in the way just described,
carried forth into the complex world, and there conducted to its mark,
a gratified feeling arises. "Yes, I have accomplished it. That is
good. I felt a defect, I desired to remove it, and betterment is
here." We cannot speak a word, or raise a hand, perhaps even draw a
breath, without something of this glad sense of life. It may be
intense, it may be slight or middling; but in some degree it is always
there. For through action we realize our powers. This seemingly fixed
world is found to be plastic in our hands. We modify it. We direct
something, mean something. No longer idle drifters on the tide,
through our desires we bring that tide our way. And in the sense of
self-directed power we find a satisfaction, great or small according
to the magnitude of our undertaking.